The decision by the all-party Oireachtas committee examining Ireland’s abortion law to recommend the repeal of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution in its present form has prompted many people to write to The Irish Examiner on the subject.

While comments from three well-known and reform-minded priests (Frs Iggy O’Donovan, Brendan Hoban and Peter McVerry) in the media about the proposed marriage referendum are clearly their own personal views, and not on behalf of any order or diocese, or the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP), it certainly does the ACP or its concerns, no favours if leading figures in or sympathetic to it can be perceived not (a) as (rightly) opposed to enforcing Catholic canon law via the Constitution or law of this State, but (b) as unconcerned with maintaining what is the universal model of marriage as between male and female, a model which long pre-dates not only Roman Canon Law, but also the gospels and indeed the Hebrew bible.

British starlet Keira Knightley called today for the true meaning of “human rights” to be acknowledged on the 60th anniversary of the landmark United Nations declaration.